30 January 2019

What is DNS Flag Day, and how does it affect you?

By Discount Domains

Firstly, what is DNS?

DNS or Domain Name System is the protocol used to provide and manage your domain name, think of it as the phone book of the internet. This protocol was designed in the 1980s by computer scientists at the University of Southern California.

Since then it has received many enhancements, likewise and there are many different implementations of the software used across different devices. However, for several years there have been known issues with aspects of the design of DNS, restricting its ability to make more intelligent decisions on where best to point you when you want to visit a site, send an email, and so on.

DNS Flag day is an initiative to address these issues and improve the reliability and efficiency of domain names.

So, what are DNS Flags?

EDNS (Extension mechanisms for DNS) is a specification for extending the original DNS protocol to allow for this additional functionality to become available, via the use of various additional information, or “Flags” as part of the DNS protocol.

Until now these flags had not been universally adopted by all providers, and several inefficient workarounds have been in place by the developers of most software used to provide DNS.

What will happen on DNS Flag Day?

From 1st February 2019, these workarounds will be disabled in most DNS server software, and subsequently by large providers around the world, causing domain names that do not comply with this specification to become unavailable.

However, rest assured that the team at Discount Domains have worked diligently to ensure that your domain name fully complies with EDNS Flags, and your services with us will not be affected. It’s business as usual!